1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to the production of construction elements and specifically to a method of cast-molding a plurality of metal-reinforced panels of concrete or the like pourable and hardenable matrix-forming material in a molding box, as well as to an improved molding apparatus suitable for use in producing metal-reinforced panels and other types of concrete or the like based construction elements.
2. Prior Art
Molding methods and devices for producing, in a single batch, a plurality of metal-reinforced structural elements by casting a flowable and hardenable material, such as concrete, a plaster mix or the like, into a partitioned molding box (also called a molding battery) are well known in the art, cf. for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,430,763, 2,560,781 and 3,542,329, Belgian Pat. No. 564,974, French Pat. No. 1,095,530 and German published patent application No. 2,907,969. Such prior art molding methods and devices have the common disadvantage that partitioning means in the form of molding boards are required and that lateral guidance of the boards by wall portions of the molding cavity is mandatory for producing panels of a predetermined and uniform thickness; in this context, "lateral guidance" means the support required to keep the partitioning means in a defined position within the molding cavity. For example, a molding board that substantially matches the interior surface of the side walls of the cavity and rests on the mold bottom has no lateral guidance in the cavity unless mechanical means, such as ribs, grooves, pins or the like, are provided on the cavity walls for maintaining the boards in their predetermined (i.e. defining the panel thickness) position prior to introducing the reinforcing elements and the matrix-forming material.
Further, prior art methods require substantially rigid and correspondingly heavy partitioning means, and operational problems result because both the lateral guidance and the molding boards in the molding box as well as the molding boards themselves tend to become damaged in prolonged operation.
A further problem of prior art battery-molding methods for producing metal-reinforced concrete panels is due to disadvantages of conventional metal-reinforcements that neither can be easily brought into tne molding compartments, nor simply maintained in proper position therein.
Finally, withdrawal of the panels produced by battery-molding may be very cumbersome unless the molding box is tiltable, as is known per se, between a casting position and a discharge position, e.g. by about 90.degree., around a longitudinal axis of the box. With a charge having a weight in the order of magnitude of hundred metric tons or more this requires heavy construction of prior art molding apparatus, both for the molding box as well as for the associated tilting mechanism.